Vibing Well with Dr. Stacy (A Foundational Approach to Healing the LIFESTYLE)

#072 Biggest Culprits that Slow Healing Progress and How To Create Space For Healing Potential

• Dr. Stacy Barczak Baker ND IHP

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We map the hidden roadblocks that stall healing and show how doing less—by creating space, clarifying goals, and resetting the nervous system—unlocks real change. From dropping diagnosis identity to turning data into wisdom, we focus on metabolic health, circadian rhythm, and practical boundaries.

• defining a clear goal and evolving routines to match it
• avoiding identity with diagnosis and labels
• reducing information overload and rebuilding intuition
• using data short term while training biofeedback
• choosing guidance to cut self-healing trial and error
• seeing symptoms as systemic inflammation signals
• prioritizing metabolic health and circadian rhythm
• treating food as instruction, not just macros
• moving often beyond a single gym hour
• creating parasympathetic time with fasting, meditation, yoga
• making empowered choices instead of fear-led decisions

I will link up my email list so you get notified for the free circadian seasonal shifts webinar in the show notes:

https://stacy-baker.mykajabi.com/opt-in-9cffc5f4-f006-4adb-a0a7-6c33a0698b4b

I’ll be announcing my foundational course in the next week or two to help us finish the year strong!

Resources mentioned:

Mycircadian APP DOCTOR (code)
Ra Optics (Code DRSTACYND) blue light blockers!
Bon Charge (Code DRSTACY) red light panel and circadian bulbs
Higher Dose (my FAV sauna blanket with low to no EMF) code DRSTACY
CGM (Code DRSTACY and DRSTACYAPP for app only)
Analemma Water (structuring)
Spring Aqua (my FAV water system) 

To work one-on-one with me, you can apply HERE!

For more from me, follow me on IG @dr.stacy.nd




This information is just that; information only - not to be taken as medical advice. Please contact your primary care before changing anything to your routine. This information is not mean to diagnose, treat, or cure disease.

SPEAKER_00:

This is Vibing Well with Dr. Stacy. Thanks so much for joining me today. Today we're going over all the things that I see inhibit someone's healing journey the most. I promise it's not all going to be metabolic related. We're going to go deep into some abstract ideas and concepts and things that were huge sticking points, not just for me on my journey, but things that I experience one-on-one with my clients as well and I've just witnessed as from an observational standpoint. So let's dive into those pink tight. I'll be right back and we'll go into this. Alright, so we're gonna dive in. I have a whole list of things that I just was like kind of spewing, things that were inhibiting me so much on my journey. And like I said, just things I get to experience with my clients and I see and inhibit the healing potential. And I think you'll probably notice a common theme as we go through, and of course I'll round this out at the end as well. Um, that healing really happens in the places where we create space, and a lot of times healing happens when we learn to do less of a lot of things. So just listen for that pattern and it will help you kind of universally understand why maybe you are inhibited in some place along your healing journey. So hopefully we can find some clarity today. So we've talked in the past recently about routines not no longer serving our current goal, right? They may have gotten you somewhere in the past. I may I made this analogy just the other day to one of my group sessions saying the reason why I don't share my food intake and everything I do is because what I do now is not how I got here to this place of metabolic flexibility. So if I share now, people are gonna try to replicate what I'm doing now, and that's not how I got there, right? So I think it's really important to make sure that we're constantly shifting our routines to match our current goals. Is weight loss and metabolic health a current goal of mine now that I've worked so hard to get to this place? No, I know how to maintain it and keep it. Maintenance looks different than the process I use getting there. So that routine had to change. And now things change based on where I'm at now, you know, based on my current state. So whether that's you healing your gut, you trying to fix your metabolic health, you trying to optimize your sleep, all of those things. Um the routine in and of itself has to reign true to your current goal, right? I think that that is a huge inhibitor for so, so many things. I'm sure you guys see me talk about this, especially on Mondays when we're trying to get motivation up for the week. A lot of times we get stuck because we don't know what our goal is, right? Like you truly have to define it. I've used this analogy so many times with our reticular activating system in the brain, our subconscious. If we don't have a definitive goal, we're basically reacting and living by default to everything that happens to us, right? And then we think it's bad luck, but really it's just poor intention, right? It is really just us not defining a goal and raising our standards to match that goal. So that has to be step one, no matter what. And if you, you know, I always take the time on the weekend to kind of reflect and refocus back to like, what am I working on? Where is my current state? What habits are keeping me in this current state? What do I need to do differently to get to this new goal? Right. And I recently just hit a personal goal of mine. And I was, you know, I'm excited about it. Yeah, absolutely. Because for me, it was a commitment to myself to, hey, get to this goal just because you can now find another one. Now find another area that needs some support and attention in your life, right? Um, that is why we were here to constantly evolve and try to be the best version of ourselves. So, with that being said, is our goals and our routines and our habits and behaviors should be constantly also evolving alongside us. So, um, but those are way easier to change if we know what the goal is, right? And then we can really use our mind to say, all right, let's, this is my goal. I've defined it. Now let's work alongside with the body and the mind. Remember, the body is the embodiment of this goal that you're wanting, the habits and the behaviors. The mind is looking for possibilities and opportunities, considering that we're in a state of parasympathetic where that can even happen, right? And that's why I talk so much about like we've got to get out of this state of survival for healing, but also for optimization of everything in our life, right? The ability to fully live, we have to get into parasympathetic. So then our subconscious can take that goal and start showing us opportunities and possibilities that we can't see for one if we're stuck in survival, but also can't see if we're just living by default. We haven't defined what we want. So, um, an analogy that I use for this is, you know, if you're um researching buying a car, and all of a sudden you, you know, you found the car that you want, and all of a sudden it's like everybody's driving that car. It's like you can't unsee it. It is literally everywhere. And that is your subconscious at work for you, saying, like, all right, you're on this level. This is what you're thinking about. Let me show you signs and possibilities and let me show you what, where your head's going. Let me show you. And the same can work if we're trying to reach a goal, right? Where we tell our subconscious, hey, this is where we where we want to go. Um, start showing me possibilities and opportunities, right? And start just bridging the mind and the body together and then questioning, are my habits and behaviors getting me closer to this goal? Are they keeping me the same? Are they moving me further away? Right. And that does come with constant reevaluation and constant realignment, which is important to be constantly doing in a place where it doesn't feel like a chore, where it feels exciting at the possibilities, exciting at what you can create, exciting at what you can change and how you can lead yourself to be that best version, whatever it is, whether it's your health you're trying to tackle, um, your finances, your relationship, your career, whatever it may be. Those are all, these are foundational truths and things that need to be set first. Then you raise your standards for what you choose to accept. Now it's very easy for me to know based on how I dealt with my health and my metabolic health and all those things. It's very easy for me to make decisions now. No, that doesn't align with my goals. No, thank you. That doesn't align with my goals. That is, you know, it's fine because I have this standard, this set of standards now. I've lost my health. I'm not going back, right? I am not going back, and I'm gonna do everything I can in my power to take care of my body that is this temple to experience the world. And that is the set of standards I have to go by now. So my decision making is very easy. Um, so it will become easier when you define what you want, right? So we talked about old routine. Um, another part of that I see um being inhibitory, and this comes to really try identifying with our diagnosis, our disease, our label, whether that is, you know, and I hear it all the time. And really you're once again, we're talking about the subconscious programming of this, right? Where you are now like, you're embodying this disease, this dysfunction, this diagnosis, right? And I hear it all the time. Well, with a person with blah, blah, blah, this is generally how how someone would feel. Or, yeah, well, since I have blah, blah, blah, this is how I feel, right? And so you're embodying it, you're joining support groups. It's like the blind leading the blind often, but you're magnifying the label. You're magnifying and embodying the diagnosis. And when that happens, just like I talked about your subconscious power, right? That's all you're gonna see. You're gonna see only opportunities and possibilities that will keep you stuck in that label because now you are fully embodying it and you are that disease. You are that diagnosis, and your body and your mind are calibrating together to say, all right, well, yeah, I guess this is all we can produce because we are now this diagnosis, and that is what we're gonna replicate every single day. Nothing new, no new possibility can happen in that. I'm not anti, you know, some of the groups and things like that, but how much time are we spending there? How emotionally invested are we getting there, right? Like, is it really helping us or is it really just causing us to focus more and more on what's wrong with us, right? And how will that ever lead to change, right? So we got to be able to decipher is this helping or keeping me stuck, right? That is a huge thing. And there, this is a world where um I love the availability of information. I don't love the overconsumption part of it. Because when we are over-consuming in information, we are doubting every step of our, we could have the best path lined out. Most of us don't, because most of us are trying to self-heal. And that's a whole other thing we'll talk about in just a minute. Um most of us, even if we had a path and a protocol and, you know, goals and everything lined out. If we're consuming information on social media, on podcasts, on this and that, we are always going to hear something contrasting to what we're doing. And then we lose, for when we lose our direction, we lose our intuition, we start to doubt. It goes back to that whole thing, like you ask 10 people what you should do in a situation, you're gonna get 10 different answers. That's not how you find clarity, right? You find clarity with really tuning in to what your goal is, how you're getting there, right? Your plan of action, right? The steps, the habits, the changes that you're incorporating to get to that goal. And you don't ask 20 people what they would do if they were you, right? And you don't try to follow somebody else's plan, right? You have to tune into what inevitably feels good to you. And that's really hard to tune into right now. It really, really is. Like I'm overwhelmed with information and I'm not even looking for answers. I can't even imagine if I was. Thankfully, the the one benefit of when I there was like no information. I don't know what's worse, honestly, because there was really no information, but that self sent me on this like self-healing uh mission, you know, where I was gonna, okay, I'm gonna read and I'm gonna learn about everything because it wasn't just like all handed to me on social media in little bits and pieces, right? And there was no wisdom bound to that information. Remember that information is not knowledge, it is just words, it's just data that's filling your brain. The knowledge comes with actually experiencing something and giving something time and consistency and seeing what outcome that produces, right? Really tuning into the biofeedback of that versus just having somebody tell you, all right, take this, this is what you need to do, this is how you need to train, this is what you need to take that, and there's no mind-body connection to that. You know, sometimes you believe in its potential and you'll follow it, but that's still not really being intuitively guided, right? Like it's just following a plan. And then if something goes off, it we are also living in a very blacker white mentality. So if you go off of this very rigid plan, you feel like you've lost everything. You might as well just let's just start again in January, right? Um, that's often what I see. It's very black and white, it's very all or nothing, it's very like, um, but also we're doubting even this solid plan that we might have paid for. We have a coach, maybe, which I encourage you to do. We'll talk about that in a minute. Um, and you still are doubting what you're doing because you're seeing contrasting information. But knowing that your intuition led you to this coach that you're working with, hopefully. And that is where you need to land for a while. And you need to trust in your process with that individual until it lo no longer serves you, right? And and and from there, you drown out the noise. You gotta close off because in a world that's constantly keeping you, wanting to keep you distracted, confused, and feeling like everything's out of your control. Because when you do that, you're going to consume more. That is the actual business model. The more confused you are, the more you're gonna consume because you're trying to fill that void that can only be filled when you tap into your intuition and your purpose and your journey and your own path there, right? So nothing that you buy can fill that void, but that's what society is driving you for. They want your consciousness, they want your attention, and then eventually they want your money because you're so confused, right? And so that is the selling, that is marketing, right? They always say, like, get people into a place of fear, that's what sells. Fear sells. And you see that. You see that with clickbait, you see that with all those things. But the more you can say, okay, I I truly feel aligned with what I'm doing right now, I'm not gonna ask people what they think I should be doing. I'm not gonna listen to anything on social media, I'm gonna mute anybody that's telling me contrasting things because I really believe in this before the doubt is planted, before that seed of doubt is planted, where you're like, because if your mind and your body are not connected to what you are working on, then it's not going to work. So that is a precursor to getting to that place is the mind and body working together. So the mind works when you are set on what you're working on, and then that the the body comes in with the habits and the behaviors, right? And the lifestyle changes that get you there. Those have to be bridging together. Okay. So along with over information, another thing that I see is us collecting too much information, right? I always say, like, only take in as much information that you can that will still allow you to maintain your peace. Remember, if you don't have your peace, you're unsympathetic, you're in survival, you can't heal there. You can't even think clearly there. You're only thinking myopically there. You're only thinking about how things affect you. You're not thinking about the big picture, you're not thinking about how we all are impacting and affecting each other. You're not even thinking broader than your current state, the comfort zone, the familiar, right? You can't think beyond that when you're stuck in survival. So whether it's like it's biochemically when in regards to health, or it's even like getting your brainwave to a certain state where you can see possibilities and work to expand and be productive and all of these other things, right? So with the tracking, and I've I've shared with you recently something I've stopped doing is the um the aura ring as a tracker because what I found was it was making my intuition really lazy for one. It was also um stressing me out. Why I want to know I had a good night of sleep because I feel good and I feel rested. And I know I didn't wake up 10 times at night. I know that. I know if I'm waking up 10 times at night, right? Like, I don't need my ring to tell me that. And then for me to wake up the next day already feeling like I'm in a deficit because your ring's like, dang, you suck. Like, you actually suck. Um, I don't need that. I don't want to be um tracking every workout every time I, you know, I also know if I've had enough movement for the day. I can tell and how my body feels, right? And so I don't want my intuition to be lazy. I want my body to be my guide. I want my biofeedback to be my guide on that. You know, I I did love it for a time period where um tracking temperature and looking at my cycle and signs that, you know, everything was happening the way it should with that. Um, but in the long run, I'm I am way more at peace without it. And so there was a time and a place where it served its purpose. And then the goal is always to collect the data, but bridge the experience and the biofeedback with that so that you don't need the data forever. And that is whether you're doing um, you know, your uh your aura ring or your fitness tracker or tracking your blood sugar, right? You don't want to feel like, oh gosh, if I don't have this tracker, I'm just I don't even know. I have no direction because you never bridge the gap between the data and how you associate how you feel with that data that's coming in. I know when I'm in ketosis, I feel it. I don't need a ketone meter anymore, although I do use it occasionally just for fun. I don't need it anymore because I know based on a feeling when I'm in ketosis. And I've associated that. Um so even like I know if my blood sugar is stable at night because of how my sleep is. I know that, I've made that association. So I don't use a monitor all the time. I'll check in a few times a year, make sure that I've got things in check, things are good, things are stable, I'm right back where I left it, right? I test ketones every now and then just to confirm metabolic flexibility, and we're off. And I, but I are also know, I know something's off. I know if I'm not in ketosis overnight. I'm hungrier, my energy is less stable, my mind's not as clear. I know these things. And so that's what I want for you is I want you to trust your body as your guide, your symptoms as your guide, and your biofeedback as your guide. I want you to trust that more than the data, but there can be a point where it's very great to associate those together, right? And so I see that a lot of people are tracking a lot of things. And the problem is you're sold on the idea that you need to track, but then you're not told how to optimize that data or associate how you feel alongside it. And that is a trap in and of itself. That makes you, once again, a lifetime consumer of these things because you don't know how to separate from it. You don't know what's happening if you don't have it on. And that makes our intuition lazy, right? It makes us not trust our body. Not, we don't, we're not learning that wisdom of the data we're bringing in. We we're losing that experience. And I don't want you to be robbed of this experience because your biofeedback is your biggest guide through this. You know, and then if you can trust that, and you can trust your intuition, that's where you step in to be, you know, your best, your best practitioner, your the best doctor for your body, but you got to get out of this over-information, over-stimulation, all of this hormonal hijacking that's happening. Um, you got to get out of that state first. And that kind of is leads me to my next point. As much as I want the healing journey to be one that is intuitively guided, unfortunately, most of us are not putting ourselves in a situation where that's a possibility because we are overconsuming information in every stream of media we can take in. And that confuses our intuition and it confuses us looking for other possibilities and other ideas. And it really makes it hard for us to be heart-led, right? Where we feel like gut-led. All right, this is a gut feeling, which we should be trusting, but we don't know. Now we don't know if it's like, is it a gut feeling, or did an influencer say, hey, you should probably do this, right? With that being said, there are a lot of good people out there that can guide you and get you to that place where they stabilize the body, the internal environment, the brain waves that have to be in a certain state for you to create anything new, getting your body out of survival and into parasympathetic, which is the only place where we can create change and the only place where we can heal. There are a lot of people who are great at coaching and guiding. And I'm not just saying me, I can't take on everyone, right? Like I'd love to, but I can't. Um, but who are you intuitively guided to to get you back to that place where then you can once again be self-led, but also trust that and know what you're looking for, and now know the wisdom of your body and how to read that and how to associate that with all this data that you're bringing in. This is not the time to self-heal. In fact, self-healing is very costly, it's very time consuming, it's a lot of trial and error, and it is um, it often gets us to a place of where we just do nothing at all, where we're just burn out because we've been trying so many different things and so many different supplements. And oh, this person said, buy this hack, buy this tool, and this is what changed our life and all these things. But you got to remember too, a lot of those people are just getting paid to say that, you know? Was that the actual thing that that moved the needle for them? It's hard to decipher these days. And I'm not saying everyone is not being authentic by any means. There are definitely brands that I support that have been life-changing to me. But does that mean that's the one missing thing that you need, or are you just stuck and you're confused and you're distracted, and that just looks like the shiny new tool that you need because it worked for this person, right? And you have no idea what that person's doing behind the scenes. And that's why I'm not going to say, hey, this one tool is the thing that changed my life the most. And I'm gonna sell it to you in that way because it's not. I make a very diligent effort to optimize my sleep, to optimize my metabolic health, to fast strategically, to move my body with intention, to get sunshine, to be out in nature. Those are things I I can't sell you. And I don't want to. I want to, I want to teach you to that those are the things, right? The things that you don't have to buy. Um, but it's very hard to decipher. And I even find that with myself, now I knowing now what I know about um the brands and things like that, brand deals, it's really hard for us to decipher like, does this person even really use this? You know? And then and then we we bought it and we thought that it was the one missing length for our health, and that's usually not the case. So I just want to, you know, I want you to know that someone guiding you through all that noise is kind of necessary right now. And it's really like I've given the analogy to like, you know, if you had a tennis coach and your your backswing feels great, like you feel like it's great, but it's inconsistent for some reason, that they look at it from an observational standpoint and they're like, yeah, you're, you know, you're bringing your shoulder up, or you gotta turn your racket just a little bit more, or something like that, right? Something that we can't see when we're in it. And that's what we need. We've gotta have somebody to say, hey, this is what's keeping you out of this place of parasympathetic. This is what's keeping your body out of this place of healing and and help you cut through the noise. And then, and then from there, you've stabilized the internal environment so that you can once again connect back to your intuition and then you're off, right? That is the goal. That is the healing process. Um, and we get so caught up in the labs and the tracking and the supplements and the protocols and the comparisons and the shiny new supplements, the shiny new tools, that we lose that focus. And we also forget that there's a lot of people out there who aren't just selling things, they actually can coach you and guide you. And that's really powerful, right? And we need that in a world of everything being AI driven and brand driven, we need that personal experience and that wisdom for somebody to look at our life as an outsider point of view to say, hey, this is where this is what I focus on. And and then, and then you associate now, like I said, if you are bringing in some data, you associate that now with how you feel. You have that wisdom, you've calmed the internal environment, and now now you can be self-led a little bit more, right? That is that's where we're at right now. So I think that is that runs right in alignment with like trying too many things at once. Um, remember in the beginning I said that healing often comes when we create space. That's why I I can sell you on the concept of this because there's nothing to sell. The biggest ways I create space and have created space for my own healing are fasting, meditation, which creates space in my mind, which gets my brainwave to a state where I can see other opportunities and possibilities, and I go there often. Um, and then physically creating space, not just with the fasting, but with yoga and hot yoga at that, um, often because I'm sweating. I'm literally sweating out toxins. I'm creating space in that way. I am moving my lymph, I'm moving my circulation, I'm moving my body, moving energy. And those are the three, those are honestly my three best healers. And that's not something I can brand and sell for you, but it it moved the needle the most for me. Um, that coupling with really honing in on my metabolic health, and we'll talk about that in just a minute. Doing less is often doing more. Even on my own metabolic health journey, we're sold this concept of, oh yeah, just load up on protein and work out every day. Didn't get me there. Did not, my insulin was way too high for that to work. Um, the overconsumption of protein, the overtraining, which kept my cortisol and blood sugar really dysregulated. I had to take a step back from that much training. I had to do way less to be able to heal that response. And sometimes we not sometimes, we always need to be looking at where we're at right now, the individual nuance of our situation. Should there really be a universal of like, oh, this is how yeah, you weight train five days a week and you eat this much protein every single day, and that fixes your metabolism. It doesn't work. It doesn't work like that. We're all in a different state going into this. We're all in a different state when we want to start to um, you know, take our metabolic health into our own hands. We all are reacting differently to the same foods based on our circadian rhythm, based on our hormonal rhythm, based on our level of insulin sensitivity in that moment. So that doesn't work. And so we got to get out of this like cookie cutter protocol situation, you know, when someone says, Oh, yeah, just let me calculate calculate your calories and your macros. Works every time, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't work every time. Trust me, I was trained in that. I was a fitness trainer, I was a personal trainer for years, I was a nutritionist for years. It doesn't work for everyone. You have to consider other factors. You have to consider the blood sugar part of things, the hormonal impact of that food you're consuming, and where that individual is with their own tolerance for those things. So I really want you to get out of that mindset of thinking, like, oh yeah, well, this is the exact protocol this person did. So it must be my way there, right? Don't do that. The self-healing journey is long and it's exhausting and it's expensive and it's a lot of trial and error. And eventually you're just gonna, you're gonna be so burnt out. Even when something does present itself as appealing to you, you're not gonna trust it because you burned yourself out so much on trying to just follow the masses. Hire somebody who knows how to look at things from an outsider perspective to help you know what to dial in, what's keeping you, what's what is your body tagging as a stressor? Some people can work out five times a week and be perfectly fine. Other people will have all of the high cortisol symptoms in the world. They're losing hair, they're getting sick all the time, their sleep is horrible. So, yes, there is always some nuance to that conversation. So have somebody get you on the right path that can help you cut through that noise. So you're not always doubting and always questioning yourself. So that's a huge, huge thing. And don't try all these things at once, right? You're just gonna end up in a situation where you're adding on, adding, adding, adding, adding supplements, adding rituals, adding routines. It's gonna be exhausting. It's maybe very taxing on your liver and your detox pathways, and you're gonna be exhausted from the process. And you're not really gonna know whatever worked, right? Because you're gonna associate, if you start to feel better, you're gonna associate it with 20 different things. You don't know which of those worked. And so when people even come to me and they're on 20 different supplements, I'm like, which one, which ones of these do you feel working? Rarely will there be a time where somebody's be able to single out the couple that they know are doing something. Um, but they're terrified to get off of them because they know they're at least band-aiding the situation. And we don't want that either. We don't want our health to come from a bottle, right? We want our health to come from our actions. And that is the crux of the situation. But remember, remember this like resounding theme we're saying too? It sells, right? And you, if I can sell you on anything, it's that you do not have to buy your health out of a bottle or with a tool, right? You don't need it. There's a lot of foundational things that That you can support through your lifestyle, through what you're doing every single day, that are not going to require you to be bound to something forever. And that is the goal. That is freedom, right? That is the absolute goal. So don't do too many things at one time, right? Um, I I did, I was mentioning before about like us identifying with our diagnosis and our and our disease, but make sure you're not also identifying with an inability to get better. If you don't think you're gonna get better, you're not gonna be able to, right? Like remember that your all your cells are tuning in to your thoughts, right? Your thoughts are producing vibrational patterns, either ones of coherence and balance or ones of chaos and inflammation, right? Incoherence. And so if your your thoughts are causing, they're not just thoughts, they are causing things, they're causing chemical reactions and hormonal reactions in your body. And so when you think a thought, especially a negative one, you're causing incoherence in your body and you're recreating that state of health over and over and over again. So that's why I'm saying get the focus off of the label in the diagnosis, for one. And for two, you have to be bringing in new thoughts. Being to that place of neuroplasticity is also helpful, right? Where you can calm the internal environment, um, get to that parasympathetic state, and then start to reintroduce new new thoughts. You can't go from zero to a hundred. You can't be like, oh, I'm as sick as can be, to like, oh yeah, I'm so healthy. Your mind's not gonna believe you. But you can say things like, I'm I'm working on a plan to get better, I'm getting a little bit better every day. I'm noticing glimmers more often than bad days. I've been able to achieve a good night of sleep, right? Like you can look for things there where your mind's not gonna immediately just be like, yeah, you're full of it, right? Like you can't just flip 180. Because once you're like I said, the mind and body have to be working together. And if your mind's been like in negative land for a really long time, it's not gonna believe this, like, oh yeah, let's just positive think our way into health, right? But can you be a little bit less specific and just start to look for some things that you're seeing some progress in? Absolutely. So you take that rate that wave and you freaking ride it because that is the new level that you need to be on. That's what you want your cells thinking. Hey, a possibility for change, right? Like, hey, we changed a habit that we've, you know, been doing for a really long time that was keeping us stuck. We changed a habit that's gonna make a new outcome, right? Like you want your body to know that change is coming because of what you're repeating, but your mind has to believe you too. And the more you repeat those and the more you're consistent with those, that's when the mind's gonna get on board with it. Hey, they're actually like, they're actually doing this. Like, let's produce a physical change now. So don't let your thoughts ruin your ability to get to this new state, right? Thoughts that are out of a place of survival because your body internally is in the state of chaos and inflammation are not our true state. They're not our true thoughts, right? They're just survival thoughts. And remember that if you have this tendency to go towards a negative really quickly, a lot of that is because your body's still stuck in this high cortisol state, the survival state. That's not you. You're not meant to look at the world through this like horrible, like everybody's out to get me. I am a victim of my circumstance, the world is horrible. Look how horrible these people are. That is not you. You're not, that is not how we are brought into this world. I know that. I know that people are mostly good. And I'm not gonna, that's not the world I choose to see. And when I'm stuck in a rut, and it does happen, I definitely have my ruts. I have to remember that there's a lot more good than there's there is bad. There might be one thing bad, and that's the only thing I'm gonna focus on, right? But when I sit down and I rationalize with my subconscious, and I'm like, actually, there's a lot of good happening, it changes things. You can at least start to change your thought pattern, and you can at least start to change how your cells are responding to those new thoughts, right? And so that is a huge thing that inhibits the healing potential, is not believing that you're ever going to get better, right? So I want to um bridge that with uh there's a I'm sure I've mentioned this on the podcast. There's a quote that it says that your new life is going to cost you your old one. You have to be able to essentially have a death of this old personality that is keeping you stuck, right? That that sick, that sick person, that sick version of yourself, that poorer version of yourself, whatever it may be. And and that couples with so the death of that old identity, I'm no longer gonna identify it. So I'm not gonna think about what's wrong with me anymore. I'm not going to continuously ruminate on thoughts that are keeping me here. I'm also not going to keep repeating habits that got me here and that are keeping me stuck here. So I'm going to change my body and my mind working together because I'm going to start instilling new habits and thought patterns, right? And you have to be open to that, right? And like I said, when we're stuck in survival and our body and our nervous system and all those things are running on stress hormones, it's really hard to think beyond that. So that is a precursor to change, no matter what you're trying to change, right? But you have to give up the habits and the lifestyles that are keeping you in that old place. It really is a new person, a new personality that you're creating, a new person, right? You're like shedding a skin. And you need to think about that. And a lot of people are like, oh, well, you know, a lot of times we're um we're around people who are like, ugh, they've changed. Like there's something wrong with that, right? Like a lot of times people around you want you to stay the same because for one, it makes it way less painful when they see you growing and evolving and they are not willing to change. And for two, a lot of people are still stuck in survival. And the idea of a new version of you is a threat to them. They don't want that. They want you predictable. They don't want you going beyond what they would ever do, what they're, you know, willing to do. So you have to think about that too. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Um, are they supportive of the changes that you're making? It doesn't matter if they are or not, right? Like we're strong enough to like be like, we don't all have to be on the same journey at the same time, right? Um, and we don't have to judge them for not by any means, but we want to make sure they're not getting in our heads. And we want to make sure that our the people we are surrounding ourselves with for most of the time are supportive of what we're trying to achieve, right? And that doesn't mean just like, oh, well, stop talking to everybody else who's negative. That's not it either. But it's like kind of learning to find your balance of like how much of this can I really take in before it starts impacting my mental state, my physical state, right? My stress hormones, all of those things. So it's really, it can be really helpful to surround yourself with the right people. And it can also be really helpful to create healthy boundaries with the people who are not so supportive. Um, another thing that I see inhibit healing potential is always just looking at each symptom as this in this myopic way. So, an example of that is like, um, let's just say one of my things I always struggled with was like allergy-like symptoms, like stuffiness. And if I was always just treating that, I never got anywhere. You know, I do the sinus rinses and I do all these things. But that now that I know what I know, that is my body's way of manifesting inflammation. So sometimes it's that, sometimes I'll get pain in certain areas of my body, but that to me is my body's red flag of saying, hey, you're inflamed. It is not that, oh, I need a joint replacement in this area of my body, or oh, I just need sinus surgery and that's gonna fix everything. That's how my body presents itself with inflammation. So we really have to get our heads out of this whole like, there's something wrong with this part of my body, as to this is the part of my body where inflammation is gonna show up if I'm not doing the right things. And so that makes you understand systemic health a lot better. Unfortunately, conventional health is overwhelmed and bombarded with lots of siloing. We have so many specialties, which keeps us even further from the answers that we're trying to achieve, right? Because we're trying to understand the body as a whole system, which I try and I hope I help you guys understand that a little bit more, is that you can't single out. And that's why even bringing in medications or supplements to fix these singular uh symptoms that we have in the body is not just going to do that, right? Like it's going to have a systemic effect on your body. It might bring some relief temporarily to that siloed out condition. But in all reality, your symptoms are your red flags that your inflammation is high, higher than your body can counter. And so that means something you're doing, something you're repeating or exposed to, or whatever that may be, is out of balance. Something can be dialed in. Something in some way, maybe you're, maybe it's even too much, too much of a good thing, right? Where you're having some high cortisol symptoms, you're losing hair, you can't put on muscle mass, whatever it may be. Um, you can't get your blood sugar stable no matter what you do, but you're doing quote unquote all the right things and working out seven days a week. You could be doing doing too much of a good thing, too, that could be producing symptoms, right? And so really it comes back to that bridging the gap of like information versus wisdom. And that only happens when you're understanding that everything you do, everything you expose your body to, especially our biggest, most constant exposures like food and light, are producing a response in the body. And that's either going to be one of balance and homeostasis or one of chaos and inflammation. We have to look at the things that we we repeat the most to be our most valuable tools in creating change for our health. And so when you are presenting yourself with those signs of inflammation, maybe it's hormones, maybe it's chronic pain, maybe it's the sinusitis, maybe it's weight gain, whatever it may be, that's your red flag to say, I have more inflammation than I can counter. Something's off. What can I dial in? How can I create space? Is what I want you to really think. Where could I create space to help create an environment where my body can help heal itself the way it's designed to do? That's what I want your new mentality to be thinking of, versus like, oh gosh, I've got some, I need a sinus rinse, I need a sinus surgery, I need a steroid to, you know, snort at my nose to get this to go down. I want you to think of it differently. Like this is how my body's manifesting inflammation. So where, what have I done lately that could have contributed to that inflammation, good or bad, right? Too much of a good thing. Or did I have uh a later dinner than I normally would have? Or did I have something that was really inflammatory that I wouldn't usually have? Did I stay out later? Did my, was my sleep impaired? There's always something. But we're taught that we're just victims to our circumstance and our health is out of our control. There's always a cause when there's inflammation. And the more you understand your body when it's trying to signal to you, hey, something's off, the more you can dial that in. The more you can learn to take a step back and look at what you did the day before, the week before, that could have contributed to that symptom. I used to um, I used to work in the event industry and I've even helped my own sister plan her own wedding and my best friend plan her wedding. And I saw this um, you know, where they just like they ran themselves into the ground the week prior to their wedding. And inevitably, so many brides get sick their wedding day because they're finally off that cortisol, like everything's done at that point. Their cortisol's finally done overcompensating, and now their immune system has just crashed because they've been riding that adrenaline for the whole week, right? Like it's it's such a common theme. But it's not like, oh, they they didn't catch a virus, right? They wore themselves down. They were riding stress hormones for God knows weeks, months leading up to this, and then their body finally felt safe enough to crash because now all the work was done and and they got sick, right? Now their immune system is suppressed at this point. So there's always something, and you're gonna see that with the impending cold and flu season, which I'll talk more about in another episode. But you're gonna see that. Is it really cold and flu season? Are we really just making each other sick? Or are we literally riding this like high inflammation roller coaster from literally October, um, you know, from Halloween on till New Year's Eve? Sugar, alcohol, lots of inflammatory foods, lots of lots of stress trying to get everybody where they need to be, holiday season, all the things. Could it be that? Or we just have all these like these viruses just lurking to come out this time of year, right? Like, what makes more sense, really? So I'll let that lie for a minute because I could talk for an hour on this, and I don't want this to be longer than an hour. So, anyways, um we're not focused on metabolic health. I'm not gonna beat this like a dead horse, like I want to really bad, but I have a lot of episodes on this. But um, remembering that our metabolic health is truly what dictates our systemic inflammation, right? Our load of inflammation. Like I said, your inflammation when it manifests, it are your symptoms. You cannot out-supplement your metabolic health. That is how your body makes, produces, and distributes energy. When you lose energy in specific areas of the body, that's when you have symptoms. You can't supplement that. You can't. You can't hack that. You can fix it. You can fix it foundationally a million percent, but you have to focus on metabolic health. That is what drives that chronic state of systemic inflammation when your cells cannot produce prop energy properly. So we'll talk more about that on another day. I've talked about it on lots of days. So I'll link up some metabolic podcasts in the show notes for you guys if you want to go deeper into that concept, but I don't want to talk for an hour on this. Um also knowing that connecting to our internal clock is extremely vital. I'm gonna talk more about this in an upcoming episode too, because that's one reason why we become so dysregulated this time of year. But just for ease of conversation right now, our body has to know what time of day it is. If it doesn't, it doesn't know what program to run, what hormone to synthesize, which neurotransmitter to build, which gut program to repair, um, when to heal the mitochondria from just normal metabolic activity. It's like our, it's really our status schedule, like an event schedule that we gotta have everything to be on time to run smoothly. And so that can get thrown by our light, it can get thrown by our erratic meal timing, it can be thrown by other things. And I'll talk more about that, but this comes to the surface even more as our days get shorter. We have no more darkness. Our lighting environment and our meal timing, things like that, are gonna throw our circating clock even more. So we have to be thinking about this if we are in this state of like stuckness on our healing journey and we don't know why, but it's something we've never thought about, right? It's a huge thing. Our body clock is a huge thing, and so we have to know how to support it. Um, and our body has to know what time of day it is to get to that place of optimization, no matter what. So you have to make sure that um you are utilizing just like our lighting environment, remember that our biggest tools for change are our most constant exposures. So for most people, that's gonna be our lighting environment and our food. And if you think about it historically, those are also the things that have changed the most in the in the past 50 years. And now we're at this place of 93% of us is um metabolically inflexible. Uh, 50 plus percent of us are type two or pre-diabetic now. There's a lot of things that um have set up this metabolic disaster, right? Those are the things that have changed the most, but those are the things that we had the most power to change, which is great. And we know how to do that now. So why don't we just start there, right? Before we we are looking for all these shiny new things to take, like, I don't want to change that. What supplement can I take, right? That's not how you fix this. It's just not the way. So, with that being said, and like I said, I'm not gonna talk for an hour on this, although I want to, you got to get the food part right. That is your constant input. Your food uh is more than just calories or macronutrients, but your food as hormonal responses, chemical responses in the body, your food that you're taking as instructions. Are you instructing your body to get to a place of parasympathetic and balance? Is your food giving you energy like it should? Or are you feeling a slump in the afternoon after you finally eat? Are you skipping meals when your cortisol's high, causing hormonal chaos? Are you um eating foods that are creating more inflammation than your body can surmount, right? Because we already know the symptoms are coming for more inflammation than we can handle. And then we're adding food inflammation on top of that, right? That is our constant lever. You have to get this part right. Once again, something that you can't, just like you can't out-train a poor diet, you certainly cannot do that. You also cannot out-supplement an improper food supply. You cannot out-supplement the effect that that food's gonna have hormonally and chemically in your body, even digestively, right? Um, so you have to look at where you can make space for one, for a lot of people, which is why fasting is an amazing tool, but you just want to be doing it in a strategic way. But looking at what is missing in your diet right now is an excellent place to start. And everybody has some place of balance that they're missing. So it's maybe it's fiber, maybe it's protein, maybe it's diversity. Um, it's usually not that they're lacking carbs, although some people have been keto for so long that they might need to bring in some balance with that. So I do, do see that. Um, but I say we're in a mostly carb-dominant, mostly processed food dominant society for the most part. But there's always something that's missing. Dietary fat, maybe, diversity of fiber, those are the things I see the biggest things that are missing. And maybe your protein sources are not coming from bioavailable, maybe they're all just powder, those kind of things. But thinking about your food as information versus just calories versus just numbers, right? Building on to that is another thing that I see inhibit a lot of healing potential is a sedentary lifestyle, not moving enough. And one hour in the gym, and then you're sitting the rest of the day, is not enough. You have to be constantly moving for lots of reasons. Remember that stagnation is what really sets the stage for chronic pain, metabolic dysfunction, uh, our lymph is gonna start pulling, right? Like all these things, right? Our our muscles, it really, if we don't use them, we lose them, right? And one hour in the gym is not enough if you're not moving throughout the day. It honestly would benefit you more to lift weights on the hour, you know, just one set of whatever you're doing, than to just sit there, have one hour, and then sit the rest of the day. It's not good. You gotta be moving, you gotta be moving often. And it doesn't matter if it's what kind of movement it is so much right now, just that you're doing something. Even if you're walking around the block after each meal you have to start something, you wanna be make sure that you're consistently moving. Now, I've talked to I've talked about this before, but like we a parasympathetic state is a requirement and a pe precursor to healing. Being in homeostasis has to happen. And so if we're not getting into a parasympathetic state, we're not gonna be able to heal. We can force some things a little bit, we can feel a little bit better, maybe, but we're not gonna fix the foundation with that. So it's really important to make sure that you are um noticing what keeps your body in that place parasympathetic. I will say our food and our lighting are a really great place to start because your nervous system is responding to those constantly. But like I said, we could have a disconnect, too much of a disconnect from nature, which is usually the case. We're not getting enough time outside in the sun, we're not getting enough time just being in nature and the natural cortisol lowering effects of that, the natural um alkalizing effects of grounding and being outside in nature, um, just the infrared from the sun, the luxe from the sky and the brightness that we need to have to have proper neurotransmitter status, things like that. Lots of things that are working against us in our standard modern environment. It's not just the food, but it's actually the indoor living that also keeps us out of that place of parasympathetic. So there's lots of things. And then we then we pull in our, you know, our dopamine hits from our media and all of these things that we feel like we always have to be constantly doing or we're lagging behind. We we can't go on a walk without listening to a podcast, right? Like we those are all keeping our nervous system on guard, right? And we think we're doing good. We think we're doing good by filling our brain with more information, but remember that's not knowledge, it's not wisdom, it's just information. It may not even be something that's pertinent to us that we actually need to hear at this moment, right? Um, reading is gonna be way more of a parasympathetic state than listening to a podcast, right? Or scrolling on your phone. There's ways of collecting information that are not going to be um causing a nervous system hit or dopamine hit or keeping us out of that parasympathetic state. So everybody's got a different level of resilience in their nervous system, everybody's in a different place, right? But we have to know that foundationally everyone needs to be in a parasympathetic state to be able to heal. And then I said beyond that, to be able to even encourage and change and think differently and see new possibilities and opportunities, right? I can't tell you how many times I work with somebody, and this was a part of my journey too, where I work with somebody and all of a sudden they're making huge huge life changes that are so great that they didn't even see as a possibility when they were stuck in that chronic state of stress. Now they're moving across the country, they're moving to be in nature, they're changing their job finally because they realized how much it was costing their health. But sometimes we had to go through the motions of protocols and things like that for them to realize, like, hey, this isn't the answer. Like it's it's helped me somewhat, but I gotta change my job situation, right? It's caught the stress from it, it is so much more, and I can't out supplement that. And that's a beautiful part of me knowing, hey, they're there, right? Like they're to that place of parasympathetic where they can actually see and like embrace the unknown and embrace change and not look at it as a threat any longer and know that's what their natural next step is. I don't tell them to change their job, right? I just helped them to calm their internal environment enough that they can see that that's a problem, right? And that's the beauty of the healing journey. It looks a little different and everybody's on a different place and everybody's on a different time. Um, all the more reason why the cookie cutter things just don't work, right? So, anyways, we have to know that getting into homeostasis is a requirement. And so connecting to our circadian rhythm, finding balance with blood sugar, getting proper light signals, connecting more with nature, connecting with others, having a per purpose, having passion, right? Those are all things that can get us there. Those are all things that we can put some focus on before we need to bring in anything that we could buy or consume to get there, right? Like just carving out time is the time that you're spending when you think you're relaxing and scrolling on a phone or watching something on Netflix, which keeps the nervous system really heightened, keeps you in that sympathetic state. But what if you made a different practice, right? The one that serves your goals, one that serves your needs and actually gets you a break from that sympathetic state. How could you do that, right? Maybe you're one of those people that's overtraining. Your body might be tagging that as a threat, keeping you in a sympathetic state. And then you're finding that you're having trouble stabilizing hormones, or you're losing hair, or you're not able to heal, or you're getting sick frequently, or all those classic high cortisol symptoms, right? So that's where the nuance needs to come in. That's where the individuality needs to come in because it's silly for me to say everybody should be working out this much, everybody should be eating this much, because that's just not how it works, right? Okay, I just have a couple more things and then I'll um round out this conversation today. Um, one other thing that I see, and I talked about this when it comes to advertising and marketing, is like trying to help create a sense of urgency and fear to sell. And I always try to do the opposite of that, which makes me not the great salesperson, but I think it's where my authenticity shines because I don't want to be sold. I don't want to be buying something out of a place of fear or urgency. I want it to be intuitively guided. And I've done that in the past and it doesn't work because then you're you like you were caught in this emo emotional moment to buy something, but you weren't necessarily intuitively connected to it, and your body and mind aren't working together on it, and then all of a sudden you're annoyed that you spent money on something that you were caught in that vulnerable state, and you're already having negative feelings about it. Like you want your money back at that point. And do you really think that that's gonna work for you now? It's not. So you were you were kind of like you were sold, and I've been sold, trust me. I have been sold, and um, I know the difference now, and I know the difference in outcome where it comes from a decision making from a place of feeling empowered and gut driven for me, intuitively driven, versus like, oh, it was like, oh, act act right now, you know, um, or or just be sick forever, you know, or some I don't know. I don't know what their tactics are. But, anyways, coming from a place of fear, and this this cannot, this is always just like it's also like if thinking about like uh medical procedures and things like that, where they're like, well, you know, if you don't do this, you're gonna have a heart attack in a year or whatever it may be. It's like, well, yeah, but what are my alternatives, right? What's my alternative to this statin? What's my alternative to this Matt Foreman? Right? Like, is there something I can do with my lifestyle? Um, you're gonna feel so much more empowered having choices and options and then being like, okay, gut feeling, which one feels right to me right now? Versus like, do this or you're gonna have a heart attack. Completely different response, right? And one is gonna put you in the driver's seat of your health, and one's gonna leave you completely disempowered. And so um remember that fear is a negative emotion. We talked about that. Our thought patterns that come from negative emotions are very incoherent in the body. You can't create a place of health and balance and homeostasis if you're always stuck in fear-based thinking or fear-based-led decisions, right? So just think about that. Like, do I feel empowered in this decision or am I afraid of everything that could go wrong? Do I feel like if I don't do this, then I'm, you know, I'm gonna be completely screwed? Do I feel pressured? You know, those kind of things because those aren't gonna create the best outcome for you. But if you feel grounded and solid and like, oh my gosh, this is like divine timing. This person came into my life. I am so grateful that this popped up, that I saw them, that I, you know, I was led to them. And I do believe that happens. And that you're gonna get a way better outcome with that, right? Just considering, okay, now you've been led to this person. Now to start drowning out everybody that's saying anything contrasting to what you and this person are working on, right? Because that's where it gets a little hairy, and that's where we get hung up, and so we just don't want to do that. So to kind of round out the conversation, I just want you to realize that um health is really created when we learn what area of our life we can create space because when you can create space, you are creating a potential for something new, you know? And so I just want you to think about health through that lens. And like I said, my biggest tools for change other than mastering my metabolism, were meditation, fasting, and yoga. Because those all were creating space. They weren't adding, it didn't feel like a chore. They felt so good when I was doing when I'm doing them. And they I know that they are creating space for a new potential in my body, whether that's chemically, whether it's mentally, whether it's cognitively, um, spiritually, even, right? From the meditation standpoint of being able to listen to your intuition. And no matter where you stand on that, um where do you think your intuition comes from? Right? Like it's something bigger than us. And that's why no journey and no time frame, no healing journey will ever look the same. Because we're all here for a different reason. We're all here for a different purpose. And we're our timing and our journey is always different. And that's why it does need to look a little different, right? Than each other's. So stop comparing yourself to what the person next to you is, even though their symptoms might be similar. How they got there is completely different. How they're gonna get out of it is gonna be different than you. And that's okay. That's the beauty of it. Because they're doing what they're gonna be intuitively guided to, and you should be too. And just try not to get hung up in all the noise and the over information that you can't hear that voice. So that's why meditation to practice for me was so transformative. Not just was it was it's doing its thing scientifically where my body and mind were working together, right? By getting into a different brainwave state and create neuroplasticity and things like that, but it helped me see new potential and new opportunities. It helped me know when to pivot, when to change something up, whether it was my career or with my children, um, with my marriage, with where we live, all those bigger decisions that have an impact on our health, sometimes we can't see that those decisions have to be made when we're stuck in that state of survival, right? And so the more we can calm the body and calm the nervous system and calm the brainwaves that are associated with being in that place of survival, then we can see through those gaps, right? And we can start to see the bigger picture and start to see where the change really needs to happen. Because I promise you, it's so much more than a B vitamin or magnesium that you need, right? There's there's something, it's your body saying, Hey, you're here to do something different, but you can't see that because the body's screaming so loud. So I just want to change as always, I want to just give you a different way of looking at things. And uh I want to help you always cut through the noise because that's what keeps you distracted, confused, and constantly purchasing, right? And that's not where health doesn't exist in a bottle, it does not it it's within you, absolutely, but um it is not going to be found in a bottle or something you buy. And so I can't stress that enough. Um, but I want you to always be in the driver's seat of your health. I want you to be empowered with every decision you make um when it comes to your health. And uh I just want you to enjoy the ride because the the true journey is who you become along the way. And it's just like asking AI for an answer to a question. We could get the answers all day long, but that didn't give us the wisdom of solving that problem, right? Because when you actually are in that healing journey, you're solving a problem. You're solving your health problem. And the more you can try something, collect some feedback, pivot a little bit, try something new that you're guided to, collect some feedback, right? That is the process. That's the journey. Just getting the answer is a that's it's not gonna get us there. It's it's just an answer and it's a cookie cutter answer at that. And it doesn't necess necessarily apply to us. And it certainly isn't giving us the wisdom we need to say, hey, if things do pop up again, what did I dial in? What did my body need to feel safe? You're not doing that if you're always just skipping ahead to the answers, right? Um, so just think about it in that way, especially if you feel like your health is a burden for like I did for so long, and now it's such a blessing because now I have such a unique perspective because I've been on one side and I've been on the other side, and now I can bridge that gap and I can help people find their clarity and their path as well over into an optimal state of health. Because I now know it's a possibility. Would I believe it as much had I not experienced it myself? Probably not, right? Um, so the wisdom is in the experience. And so you're being challenged with this for a reason. And it's for it's an opportunity for growth. It's an opportunity to learn more about yourself, and it's an invitation to get curious about where this fits in the in not just your health, but in your whole life, right? Your ability to expand and evolve into this highest best version of yourself, knowing that the physical body is part of that, right? And so when you can master the physical body, then you have potential to go way deeper into so much more that is out there for you. So, all right, I want to before I just become crazy, like out of left field, let's just stop it here. Um, we're gonna come back in a week or so and we're gonna be talking about the circadian seasonal shifts and changes. I'm gonna be doing a free webinar on that too. So I will link up my email list so you get notified for that in the show notes. Um, and I'm also gonna be introducing my foundational course so we don't just give up these last couple months of the year where we come into the new year stronger than ever. Why don't we just start off that way versus just letting everything go to, you know, hell in a handbasket? Um, because it's the holiday season and God forbid everybody's gonna be working against us and we don't have the mental capacity to be strong and raise our standards. But we can actually. And so my foundational course, I'll be announcing that in the next week or two as well, to get us on a the strongest base ever going into the new year and keeping us focused and aligned with our goals that we have been working so hard towards all year, um, making sure that we are reconnecting back to that before we get into this season of stress, right? And all of the seasonal and cyclical changes that need to go alongside it. We'll be talking about all of those things. So thanks so much for listening to my rambling today. I can't wait to talk to you guys here soon. Have a beautiful rest of your day, and I'll see you next time.